


guardians of a rare thing

by LtTanyaBoone



Series: love ignites in my veins [4]
Category: Pan Am
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15554196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: Kate and Colette consider growing their family.





	guardians of a rare thing

The folder’s heavy. It’s the first thing Kate notices. She swallows and wills her hand to stop shaking as she reaches out to open it.

Inside are dozens of sheets detailing informations about possible sperm donors. The redhead swallows and blinks and begins reading.

There are a few pages that already have colored page flags on them. Colette went through the folder before her and tabbed a couple possible candidates. There are green tabs, yellow, and red. Green means that they are a match for their physical traits. With them, it’s a donor that either had red or brown hair and green or brown eyes. Yellow means they match one trait and the one that they don’t is considered recessive. Like a donor that has brown hair but blue eyes, combined with Colette’s DNA, it will probably result in a brown-eyed child nonetheless. And red are donors that are out of the question, either because their traits don’t match up at all, or because there is something else in their history that indicates issues further down the line.

It’s so weird, to be making these decisions, Kate thinks. Like she’s basically looking for someone who matches her physical description, only in a guy, so that they can use their sperm to have a child that can be passed off as a mix of her and Colette.

It has surprised her. The thought of having a child, biologically. Part of her had simply assumed they’d adopt. And Kate would have been fine with that. To her surprise, it had been Colette who’d been sort of reluctant about it. For one, she’s still a French citizen. Which they haven’t talked about changing in the future, and Kate gets that her citizenship is important to her wife, in a way. Just like her last name is.

Unlike her, Colette does know something about being an orphan, of waiting for a forever family. They’d talked about the possibility of adopting, or fostering maybe, but when it had turned out that their choice would have been a child no older than eighteen months, the two had wondered if having a child themselves would be so far off.

Deciding who’d be the one getting pregnant had been easy, really. Kate never, ever wanted to be pregnant, found the thought itself horrifying at worst, deeply uncomfortable at best. But Colette’s eyes at lit up at the prospect. The redhead would totally have been fine with a surrogate, but seeing Colette’s expression when it came to talking about getting pregnant had quickly made her realize that there would be absolutely no need to look for someone outside their marriage to go ahead with the pregnancy.

“Find someone you like?”

Kate looked up and watched Colette hold up a bottle of beer. She nodded and accepted the opened bottle, taking a sip.

"Not yet,” she allowed and scooted over a bit to make room for her wife on their couch. Colette came over and sat down, pulling her feet up onto the couch.

“It’s, weird,” the brunette said with a slight frown, stealing Kate’s bottle to take a sip herself. “Like shopping for clothes or something, only this isn’t something we can return, if we don’t like the result,” she shook her head. Kate swallowed thickly and decided to skip the numerous candidates in favor of checking those Colette had put a green pageflag on.

“Do you really want someone who likes Stephen King as the father of your child?” she asked with a frown as she read over the information. And felt Colette’s hand on her thigh. The redhead looked up in confusion, frowning when she saw the soft expression on Colette’s face. Her wife could be quite the literary snob, she hadn’t intended the quip as an insult, just a joke.

“Our child,” she corrected her. “And you like King. Or so I thought,” she added with a slightly confused expression. Kate drew a slow breath. Right. She did enjoy some of the man’s writing. It just, wasn’t something she’d considered. Looking for, in a donor, that was.

“Sorry,” Kate apologized, her voice soft. “I... I didn’t, think about it, that way,” she admitted, furrowing her brows. “I thought we were just, looking for physical traits. Hair color, eye color, no genetic disposition to any serious illnesses, that sort of thing. I hadn’t considered matching personality aspects. Especially not to mine,” she shrugged. Colette shifted and leaned in to brush her lips over Kate’s cheek before she took her hand, entwining their fingers.

“Just because you can’t be the donor in this, doesn’t mean I don’t want your child,” she told her. “It sucks, that we have to do it this way, and it makes me want to scream sometimes,” she allowed, “but if there’s a guy with similar interests as you, I’d be more inclined to go with him than someone who matches my interests. I know my DNA is part of the deal anyway, so,” she trailed off with a shrug.

“I don’t think they list ‘repressed homosexual’ as traits,” Kate joked, flinching when she saw the expression on her wife’s face. “Sorry,” she apologized with a soft sigh. “Just, trying to, take the edge off.”

“By self-deprecating humor that hits a nerve?” Colette arched an eyebrow before shaking her head. “Look,” she said and reached out, thumbing through the folder with a slight frown. Her face relaxed when she found the page she’d been looking for and showed Kate.

As she read over the details, the redhead blinked in surprise. The donor and her shared their eye color, though he was brunette. Everything else, though, read a lot like someone had written a dossier about the redheaded woman. They shared their height and BMI. The possible donor had an interest in history and languages, the two things Kate had majored in in college. He was college educated and currently held a teaching position at a community college, though which one wasn’t specified. He’d been born and raised on the East Coast and had a sister that was four years his junior. He liked music, though he didn’t play any instruments. Three of his four authors of choice matched with ones Kate found herself reaching for a lot as well. He liked to travel and had been in over fifty countries, his favorite destination remaining France, a detail that made Kate actually laugh. The guy’s religion was specified as ‘atheist’, though the detail in brackets said he’d been raised Christian and was baptized.

“Is that an important detail?” Kate suddenly found herself wondering, tapping the ‘religion/faith’ section. Colette frowned before shrugging.

"Not really,” she answered. “It doesn’t make a difference to me, what they believe in. They won’t have a say in the baby’s upbringing. I know that it’s important for certain branches of religions, but it doesn’t matter to me, personally.”

Kate found herself frowning slightly, contemplating the sheet. “Do you...” she started, unsure how to go about asking. She didn’t want to ask if Colette liked the guy, it felt way too personal. But what was the right way to phrase this? ‘Do you want to have his child?’ Asking that about a stranger they didn’t have a picture of sounded so... callous.

“I don’t know,” Colette sighed. “I think I liked the way his details reminded me of you. Like honestly, most of this, I would have answered had someone asked it in regards to you.”

“I’m not an atheist,” Kate replied with a frown. Agnostic, probably, and a cynical one at that, she was willing to admit that. But atheist?

Colette rolled her eyes and rested her head on Kate’s shoulder.

“If that is the only detail that bothers you...” she trailed off. Kate sighed and reached up to run a hand through her hair.

“Is it weird that I want someone with my hair color?” she asked. "Or at least a blonde,” she frowned.

Colette lifted her head, contemplating her.

“Really?” she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly. Kate gave a shrug, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth.

“It’s, weird, I know,” she admitted. “But like, the chances of even a redhead passing on that gene are small, especially given your hair color-”

“My mother was a blonde,” Colette reminded her. “So there’s a chance that, if we pick a blonde donor, we end up with a blonde child.”

“Would that bother you?” Kate asked, suddenly curious. Colette frowned, taking a moment to contemplate the question, before she shook her head no.

“Non,” she answered. “Would it help you if I told you I have a redhead in my family?”

“Really?” Kate leaned back, searching her wife’s face. That was the first time she’d heard about this. Colette did seem sincere, though, as she nodded.

“My paternal grandmother,” she explained. “I don’t know if it goes back any further than that,” she added with a slight tremor in her voice, “and my father had brown hair, so it might not have been passed on to me.”

Kate hesitated, looking back at the donor details.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Donor 587-9 it is, then.”

* * *

Kate sighed and stretched, her back arching off the mattress before she relaxed. She checked her watch and then decided that she might as well get out of bed. It was the weekend, sure, but Colette was already up and in the bathroom, and if Kate was awake, there was no point in lounging around in bed.

The redhead sat up and threw back the covers, finding a giddy grin on her face as her eyes found the calendar on the wall. Three days ago had been circled repeatedly in purple, the color Colette used to track her cycle and mark the possible start of her period.

But Colette hadn’t said anything about having started her period. Granted, it was only their second attempt at AI, and after last time, they’d decided that Kate wasn’t going to ask about it, but...

The redhead shook her head and went to grab an outfit for the day.

Two months ago, Colette’s period had been right on time. She’d taken a test when it hadn’t arrived on the morning, but it had been negative, and by the evening, Colette had told her that she’d started her period. Kate had been disappointed, but it had been even harder to see the sadness and devastation in her wife. Dr Ricks had explained how it most likely wasn’t going to happen on the first attempt, but that hadn’t prevented either one of them from getting their hopes up.

They’d made a deal, after that. Kate wasn’t going to ask about it. Colette would tell her, if she took a test, or when she got her period. Her wife had mentioned neither, and Kate could have sworn that she heard her throw up last night.

She shook her head and grabbed her clothes, going to use the bathroom. Colette stepped from it just as Kate reached for the doorknob. And the expression in her wife’s eyes made the redhead’s heart fall.

“Oh no,” she breathed, dropping her clothes as she saw Colette’s face crumble. “C’mere,” she murmured and pulled her wife into a tight hug. Colette leaned into her, hiding her face against Kate’s neck as the redhead felt her clutch at her back, her body trembling.

“It’s okay,” Kate whispered and turned her head to kiss Colette’s cheek. “Cry, love. Cry as much as you need to,” she told her, hearing Colette take a shaky breath.

“I thought...” she started as she leaned back, attempting to wipe the tears from her eyes. “It was early, but I felt so horrid yesterday, and it made me think... I was about to take a test, but I started my period last night, or this morning, I don’t know, but there was blood in my underwear, and-” the brunette cut herself off and burst into fresh tears. Kate closed her eyes against her own tears and wrapped her arms around her wife tightly.

“I love you," she murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I love you, so, so much,” she repeated, not knowing what else to say, how to make this better.

* * *

“Are you sure?”

She couldn’t help herself, she just had to ask. Kate swallowed and watched as Colette furrowed her brows, hesitating briefly before she gave a curt nod.

“Yes,” the brunette said. “I want to try, one more time, before we... discuss further options,” she told Kate, swallowing thickly.

The redhead took a deep breath and crossed her arms, watching her wife.

This whole journey had been hard, on both of them, but Kate knew that Colette had been forced to bear the brunt of it. It didn’t mean that the American didn’t hurt, or felt the emotional toil, but she didn’t have any illusions that when it came to the two of them, what Colette had been forced through was worse. At least Kate didn’t have to have herself poked and prodded but could relax instead, knowing that all that was getting damaged in the process of this were her feelings, not her body.

“Okay,” she finally said and took Colette’s hand. “But if this doesn’t work out again-”

“I know," Colette nodded, her dark eyes shimmering with wetness. The brunette inhaled and slowly let out her breath again. “I’m, nervous,” she admitted. Kate nodded and reached up to stroke her cheek gently.

“Me, too,” she told her with a shy smile. No matter how many times they did this, she would probably always been nervous on the days of the AI.

Dr Ricks walked into the room, greeting the two with a smile.

“How are you feeling?” she asked Colette, tilting her head at the French woman. Who gave a shrug, or as close to it as she could, in her prone state.

“Nervous. Anxious,” she admitted. “A bit sore,” the brunette grimaced, indicating the injection site where she’d given herself hormone shots for the past weeks.

“Let’s have a look, shall we?” their fertility doctor nodded and grabbed the ultrasound gel, spreading some on Colette’s abdomen. To make sure her wife was actually ovulating and they weren’t doing this for nothing. Kate held Colette’s hand, stroking her thumb over the back of it in a soothing caress.

“Alright,” Ricks declared as she removed the ultrasound wand. “From a medical standpoint, I’d be happy to proceed with the insemination. If you two are still sure about this?”

Colette and Kate exchanged a look, searching each other’s eyes.

“Yes,” Colette declared after a moment as Kate gave a silent nod. Ricks inclined her head, making a note in Colette’s file.

“Let me go grab Anna and we’ll get you prepped. You can stay, if you want to,” she turned to Kate, who nodded eagerly. Ricks gave Colette a look, who almost rolled her eyes.

“I’m okay with her staying," she told the doctor. It was ridiculous, but still, Ricks had to make sure. If Colette had wanted privacy, Kate would have given it to her, but there was a part of her that really, really wanted to be in the room when it happened. It was enough, knowing that her child wouldn’t have any of her DNA, she didn’t need to know that she literally hadn’t been around when they were conceived.

Like the previous three times, everything seemed to happen so fast, and so slowly, that it left Kate slightly disoriented afterwards. She helped Colette up after a while, allowing her wife to adjust to an upright position again.

“Anything you wanna do, now?” she asked, keeping her voice low. Colette shook her head, adjusting her skirt.

“Go home,” she answered. “And be close to you.”

Kate nodded, holding out her arm, feeling much the same way.

* * *

She heard Colette rummage around the kitchen for a couple of minutes before her wife called out.

“Can you give me a hand with dinner?”

Kate sighed and put her book down, grumbling for good measure as she approached the kitchen. She tried a pout, though it only managed to cause her wife to raise an eyebrow at her. The redhead let out a sigh and stepped closer to kiss Colette’s cheek before she went to get some kitchenware from the cupboards.

As the timer rang, she noticed Colette jumping in surprise. Kate saw her close her eyes briefly before her lips tugged into a soft smile.

“Could you get the oven?”

“Sure,” Kate shrugged and grabbed a pair of oven mitts before turning the oven off and opening it.

“Um...” the redhead muttered as she pulled the dish out and set it on the counter, absolutely confused.

“What’s this?” she finally decided to ask her wife as she took the mits off.

“What does it look like?” her wife asked in return, as if the answer was obvious. Kate blinked, looking for the trap. She was sure this had to be one, like she was about to say something wrong, no matter what her answer was going to be.

The redhead frowned at the dish. It was the bottom part of a casserole dish. A single bread roll sitting in the middle of... what was that green stuff? Peas?

“It’s a bun on peas,” she finally replied, frowning at her wife in suspicion before she put her hands on her hips with an exasperated expression. “Is this one of these weird pranks Martin and you thought of?” she asked. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she fell victim to the friends’ weird sense of humor. But Colette let out a soft giggle and shook her head.

“Non,” she replied, amusement filling her voice. “It’s not a prank,” she told the redhead, adding an “I swear!” when Kate shot her a sceptic look.

“Then what is this?” the redhead inquired, motioning towards the dish.

“What’s the middle part?” Colette asked in turn.

“A bread roll,” Kate replied, exasperation creeping into her voice.

“Another name for it,” the French woman prompted.

“Bun?” her wife responded, arching an eyebrow at her.

“And where was it?” Colette inquired, the smile evident in her voice. Her heart was racing in her chest, she felt butterflies doing somersaults in her stomach as she watched her wife puzzle over the casserole.

“In the oven,” Kate answered, her patience wearing thin. “What?” the redhead asked and Colette let out a soft laugh.

“Say it again,” she prompted her wife. “There was a...” she started, waving her hand at Kate to get her to complete the sentence.

“...Bun in the oven,” the redhead rolled her eyes. Suddenly, Kate’s expression of amused exasperation disappeared as her face went slack and her jaw dropped. The redhead stared at her wife, reaching up to cover her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she breathed and Colette let out another laugh as she felt tears well up in her eyes.

“You’re pregnant?” Kate whispered as started to round the counter. Colette nodded mutely, meeting her wife halfway to hug her tightly. Kate turned her face against her wife’s neck, tears forming in her eyes that she tried to force down, but only had little success at.

When they parted, Kate shook her head and reached up to wipe tears from her eyes. She leaned in and kissed Colette carefully, cradling her face before she touched their foreheads together. The brunette reached up and took hold of Kate’s wrists, stroking her thumbs over the back of her palm.

“You’re pregnant,” the redhead breathed, letting a shaky laugh escape her.

“Oui,” Colette replied, her breath leaving her. “We’re having a baby.”

Kate let out a soft sniffle and shook her head, leaning back.

“Are you sure?” Kate asked, a guarded expression taking hold of her face. “I’m sorry, I just...” the redhead trailed off with a slight shrug, avoiding Colette’s eyes. The brunette grabbed her hand and gave it a soft squeeze before lightly pulling on it.

“Come," she muttered, pulling Kate along to the table, where her wife’s purse was resting. Kate watched her open it and rummage around in it. She raised her eyebrows in surprise as Colette pulled out a home pregnancy test, handing it over. The redhead swallowed thickly as she took it, turning around the plastic stick to figure out which way was up.

“There’s another one upstairs, if you want to watch me take it,” Colette told her as the redhead simply stared at the window, the word ‘pregnant’ staring back at her.

“But maybe this helps settle your nerves. It helped mine,” she added, carefully placing the printout in Kate’s line-of-sight.

Kate’s eyes widened and she dropped the pregnancy test, clamming a hand over her mouth as she reached for the ultrasound picture with a trembling hand. It was a 2D-image, showing a grainy gray background with a black oval in the middle. On the side of which, a small grainy gray circle sat.

“I went this morning,” Colette told her, wrapping an arm around Kate’s waist to be able to see the picture, too. “They said things look good. This is the baby,” she explained, pointing at the small grey circle. “Six weeks, two days. It’s about the size of a sweet pea right now," she added when Kate failed to say anything.

She shifted on her feet and let out another sniffle.

“Shit,” Kate muttered and gave a shake of her head before enveloping Colette in another hug, squeezing her tightly. “God, I’m so...” she trailed off with a teary laugh, unable to describe the rush of emotion she was experiencing. Happiness, and joy, and worry, and fear, and love, and hope, all of them combining to render Kate speechless.

Colette shook her head and returned the hug, relaxing against her wife.

“I know,” she murmured.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked her, slowly letting go of Colette to search her face. “Bleeding, or nausea, or anything?” she asked, furrowing her brows. The brunette hesitated, and Kate felt her heart skip a beat before it started hammering in her throat.

“I had some spotting,” she admitted. “Which is why I didn’t say anything,” she added quickly at Kate’s horrified expression. “I thought I was getting my period, but it was just really mild spotting, for one day, and I kept thinking that seemed weird, so I, took a test. Which turned positive, and then I went for an ultrasound this morning, and... There it was,” she gestured at the picture still clutched in Kate’s hand. The redhead took a shaky breath, her eyes drifting to the image.

“Hey,” Colette murmured and reached for her. “Implantation bleeding is-”

“Completely normal, I know,” Kate shook her head. “I just, worry,” she added with a shrug. She hesitated before reaching out, touching her hand against Colette’s lower abdomen carefully. The French woman watched her, gently covering Kate’s hand with her own.

“We’re okay,” she told her, keeping her voice soft and low. Kate nodded slowly, a smile creeping across her face. Colette felt her hand move, her thumb beginning to stroke over the material of her shirt.

“Hey baby,” her wife murmured, her brows twitching as her lips tugged into a grin.

“What?” Colette asked her, her own face breaking into a smile.

“Bun-Bun,” Kate said and the brunette’s eyes widened in horror. She quickly shook her head.

“No,” she protested. “Absolutely not,” she added at Kate’s determined look. “Peanut, okay, fine. Sea monkey, I could accept. But not, not that.”

At her words, her redheaded wife let out a hearty laugh before kissing her.

“Nope,” she told her. “It’s settled. Bun-Bun it is. And honestly, it’s your own fault, you know. You got no one to blame but yourself,” she added with a grin, drawing a groan from Colette.

“This is not happening,” she protested, though she couldn’t help but smile at the happiness dancing in Kate’s eyes.

“Sure is,” Kate replied. “Come Bun-Bun, let’s get your mommy something to eat,” the redhead added, giving Colette’s belly a gentle pat before she pulled her in the direction of the counters and their dinner, leaving Colette to shake her head at her.

_fin._


End file.
